1 comment:

Your information is out of date. All soldiers, especially infantry are trained to fight in CQC (close quarters combat). In addition, you are failing to take into account supply chain, weapon types and terrain.

In basic training (as of 2006) soldiers were taught to fire from the prone unsupported, prone supported and kneeling positions at targets from 50m to 300m. In addition, due to the type of combat operations occuring in Iraq at the time, soldiers were also trained to fire from moving vehicles at targets from 15-100m.

However, enlisted infantry (and combat arms officers, including pilots) are taught the basics of fighting at close range in urban environments and indoors with targets ranging from 5m or less to about 25m. Those units that will be doing lots of CQC fighting further train in special urban cityscapes and indoor homes, businesses etc. with live ammo honing their skills.

Soldiers in WW2 and Vietnam carried nearly all the ammo they would have available in a given firefight. When you are worried about running out of ammo, which would make you defenseless and get killed you tend to not to waste ammo as much. In modern combat infantry often are driven into battle in APCs or MRAPs where they can quickly re-supply. In addition theses vehicles make for excellent cover from which to fire large numbers of rounds to suppress the enemy while maneuvering the attacking force for the kill. Lastly, aircraft are now much more prevalent and their ability to precisely and quickly provide ammo and other supplies to forces in the fight have been greatly expanded - further increasing the ground forces supply of ammo and reducing their need to conserve.

I also wonder about your number of 250,000 rounds fired. Does this include only small arms - or all rounds fired? We use far more bullets than bombs or missiles in Iraq and Afghanistan than we did in previous conflicts because most of the fighting is urban and the objective is not to necessarily kill the enemy, but rather to win the support of the civilian populace. Bullets are more accurate than explosive type munitions and create less collateral damage. It's no wonder then that more of them are used in the conflicts than 500lb bombs or artillery.

The goal isn't to kill as many enemy as possible. If that were the case we would just nuke or carpet bomb everything. The goal is to DEFEAT the enemy, or at least deny him the ability to achieve his objectives. This is NOT the same as killing him. If one of the enemy objectives to to convince the civilian populace to not cooperate with you, then by killing lots of enemy forces, and probably some civilians you then the enemy is winning, even though you might be killing more.

However, I agree that the military still trains nearly everyone on stationary targets, which is not at all like the conditions on the battlefield. Recently, the Marines developed some type of target robots that move around on the range that the rifleman must engage. Initial feedback has been very positive, and hopefully this will be incorporated for all marksmanship training.